was indifferent, confining her often for days together to the
sofa and a darkened room. Her husband, meanwhile, possessed a craving
for agreeable feminine society, liable to be gratified in a somewhat
errant manner abroad, unless gratified in a discreet manner at home. So
Honoria had taken over the duty, for friendship's sake, of keeping the
well-favoured, genial, middle-aged gentleman innocently amused. To
Honoria, at this period, no experience came amiss. For the past three
years, since the death of her godmother, Lady Tobermory, and her
resultant access of fortune, she had wandered from place to place,
seeing life, now in stately English country houses, now among the
overtaxed, under-fed women-workers of Whitechapel and Soho, now in some
obscure Italian village among the folds of the purple Apennines. Now
she would patronise a middle-class British lodging-house, along with
some girl friend richer in talent than in pence, in some seaside town.
Now she would fancy the stringent etiquette of a British embassy at
foreign court and capital. Honoria was nothing if not various. But,
amid all mutations of occupation and of place, her fearlessness, her
lazy grace, her serious soul, her gallant bearing, her loyalty to the
oppressed, remained the same. "Chaste and fair" as Artemis,
experimental as the Comte de St. Simon himself, Honoria roamed the
world--fascinating yet never quite fascinated, enthusiastic yet
evasive, seeking earnestly to live yet too self-centred as yet to be
able to recognise in what, after all, consists the heart of living.

She and Mr. Quayle had met at Aldham Revel during the past winter. She
attracted, while slightly confusing, that accomplished young
gentleman--confusing his judgment, well understood, since Mr. Quayle
himself was incapable of confusion. Her views of men and things struck
him as distinctly original. Her attitude of mind appeared
unconventional, yet deeply rooted prejudices declared themselves where
he would least have anticipated their existence. And so it became a
favourite pastime of Mr. Quayle's to present to her cases of
conscience, of conduct, of manners or morals--usually those of a common
acquaintance--for discussion, that he might observe her verdict. He
imagined this a scientific, psychologic exercise. He desired, so he
supposed, to gratify his own superior, masculine intelligence, by
noting the aberrations and arriving at the rationale of her thought.
From which it may be susp